Lawrende Hynes, who lived for more than twenty years among the natives of Africa, wrote in the English magazine Answers:
"One of the black bearers placed his load on the ground and sat under a tree. When asked if he was sick, he replied:
"I do not be sick, I die!".
"An hour later, he was dead." As he questioned the other natives, it came to be known that this man had violated a taboo (sacred rule) of alms. "And that the sorcerer had cast a spell on him.
"Of course, people who do not know the natives' way of life think that all this is pure superstition." They imagine that sorcerers exert a particularly striking influence on primitive blacks, but who lack any power against whites. who knows true Africa, mysterious and disturbing Africa, knows that its feiticism, its magic and its terrible rites can be fatal to the European, like the natural blacks of the earth.
I do not know if it is simple to impose this appeal of appealing to strange forces or whether it should be explained, saying that the African sorcerer knows many secrets that the white ignores. The fact is that I personally witnessed numerous phenomena, which neither I nor the present Europeans can explain.
This was the case, for example, with the Dutch businessman Doorn. A strong, strong man, accustomed to be obeyed, arrogant with both blacks and whites, Doorn had always thought that all the art of sorcerer wizards was pure charlatan. One day, under the influence of alcohol, he profaned an image considered sacred. The wizard asked him to leave the place. Doorn answered with a hollow and spat in the small wooden idol. Rising, the sorcerer headed for his hut. All night he was seen by a small fire, murmuring invocations and curses, until, utterly exhausted, he collapsed.
The next morning the Dutchman was found dead. His face was contorted by the suffering of agony, his eyes reflected immense dread and his body was all shrunk. An investigation was opened and a European doctor, under the supervision of the district commissioner, performed the autopsy. It was perfectly sound.
There are no signs of poisons, nor are there any injuries. However, it is evident that he suffered a painful agony ...
It is known from an unsuspected source that a white judge and a black policeman who had respectively condemned to death and directed the execution of a "leopard man" were both completely blind at the very moment when the sentence complied
Another well-known case is that of a district commissioner, who had a sorcerer apprehended, to punish him severely for crimes he had committed. for at the same time that the sorcerer was entering the prison, the commissary's son was taken by a high fever, with no other symptom of infirmity. The doctors did not know what to do and everyone feared for the boy's imminent death. The commissar, out of his mind and desperate, sought out a sorcerer, and he said that the boy's fever would be released as soon as they let him out of prison. Immediately, he was ordered to deliver the feiticero. At the same time, the fever of the patient disappeared and he regained his normal state.
From that day on, the commissar no longer cared for the sorcerers. He had learned what all those who know Africa well know best: "It is better not to intrude on things you do not understand."